Wolf Trouble

by Paige Tyler

  “Because you might have to take down a suspect where other people can see it,” he told her. “It might not be fair, but if a man my size puts a big guy on the ground, it isn’t likely to raise any eyebrows. But if a woman your size does it, seemingly by pure muscle—”

  “It’s going to attract unwanted attention,” she finished.

  “Exactly.” He grinned. “So, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Khaki wrapped her hand around Hale’s thick wrist the best she could and started the twisting takedown move he’d shown her. But when she came to the part where she was supposed to yank him over her hip and take him to the ground, he stood there like a freaking tree trunk and gave her a shove that sent her sprawling instead of him. That earned her a few laughs from the guys. Not that they laughed very hard since all of them were dirty from getting their asses whooped too.

  “You have to use your butt to shove me off balance before you try to throw me, or it’s never going to work,” Hale said. “Try it again.”

  She climbed to her feet with a grumble and got back into position, but when she tried it again, she only ended up on her ass.

  Hale offered a hand to help her up. “Let’s team you up with somebody else and see if it works better.” He glanced at the guys. “Becker, get over here.”

  Becker was at her side in a flash, making her—and everyone else—laugh.

  “Be gentle,” he said as she got a grip on his wrist and shoulder. “It’s my first time.”

  “Somehow I have a hard time believing that.”

  Laughing, she shoved him off balance with her hip and executed the flip move. Becker was only a couple pounds lighter than Hale, but he didn’t resist quite as much when she started to move. Maybe he was just better at being a practice dummy, or maybe he wasn’t as experienced as Hale, but regardless, Becker went over her hip and landed in the dirt with a thud.

  She’d done it! She’d put down a guy who outweighed her by a hundred pounds without using her werewolf strength. She hadn’t done it as smoothly as Hale did, and she fell over Becker in the process, but hey, he was on the ground.

  The guys applauded as she climbed to her feet and helped Becker up. She was about to ask him if he wanted to try again when she realized he was looking at her strangely. Then he leaned forward and sniffed her. What the hell?

  “Why does your uniform smell like Xander?” he asked.

  She froze as Max, Alex, and Hale moved closer, apparently wanting to confirm it.

  Crap. She was screwed. She and Xander were so busy showering separately to make sure their scents didn’t linger on one another, they never even thought about it rubbing off on each other’s clothes.

  “Becker’s right,” Max said. “It smells like you and Xander have been rolling around on the floor together.”

  Actually they had, but neither of them had been wearing clothes at the time.

  “It does?” Hale frowned as he leaned in to sniff her uniform top. “I can’t smell anything.”

  “That’s because your nose sucks, dude,” Becker said, then looked at Khaki. “What, did you and Xander do your laundry together or something?”

  Double crap. That was exactly what they’d done. She’d spent the night at his place and tossed her clothes in the washer with his without thinking about it.

  The guys were looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to answer. The problem was, she didn’t have a clue what to say.

  She opened her mouth, not even sure what was going to come out, when Cooper spoke.

  “You want to tell them, Khaki, or should I?”

  Khaki’s heart stopped. Cooper knew. She didn’t know how, but he’d figured it out. And now, he was going to tell everyone.

  “Um…”

  She knew she should answer, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say. How did you just come out and admit you were sleeping with your squad leader?

  She was still trying to decide if it would be best to just rip the bandage off all at once or drop the bombshell in small, bite-size pieces when Cooper decided she was taking too long.

  “Khaki was practicing takedown moves with Xander this morning before you guys got here,” he said.

  If she’d been at a loss about what to say before, she was absolutely speechless now. She hadn’t done anything that even looked like martial arts training with Xander this morning. Wrestling, maybe.

  He met her gaze, his dark eyes unreadable. “You might as well admit it. You were trying to get in some advance practice so you wouldn’t embarrass yourself, right?”

  Khaki had no idea why Cooper was covering for her and Xander, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Um, yeah.” She gave them a sheepish look. “I didn’t even know how to take a fall, so I asked Xander for some tips. I didn’t want to look like a complete idiot out here, at least any more of an idiot than I already do.”

  She held her breath, sure no one was going to believe anything she’d said. But they all nodded, as if what she’d said made complete sense to them. Moments later, they were back in training mode, flipping and being flipped.

  Khaki couldn’t help looking at Cooper out of the corner of her eye every few seconds.

  What the hell had just happened?

  * * *

  It took her over an hour to find an excuse to get Xander by himself in a part of the compound where it was private enough to talk openly. But a run over to the small armory behind the maintenance and training building to pick up some new M4 magazines for the operations vehicle gave her a chance to tell him what had happened that morning.

  “Are you sure he knows?” Xander asked.

  His voice might have sounded calm as he dug through the cardboard box on the shelf and came out with four thirty-round magazines, but Khaki could hear his heart beating a mile a minute.

  “No, but he was obviously lying about seeing the two of us practicing martial arts moves this morning,” she said.

  Xander grabbed another handful of magazines. “If he knows what we’re doing, why the hell would he bother to come up with a lie to cover it up?”

  Boots sounded on the concrete walkway outside, accompanied by a scent she knew all too well.

  Cooper walked into the armory and closed the door. “I lied to cover your asses since you two are doing such a crappy job of it yourselves.”

  Khaki’s first instinct was to deny everything, but it was too late for that. She glanced at Xander. His body was tense as if he expected a fight. He exchanged looks with her before turning back to Cooper.

  “How long have you known?”

  “That you two were attracted to each other?” Cooper asked drily. “Or that you were sleeping together?”

  Xander’s eyes narrowed. “You knew something was going on between us before this morning?”

  Cooper folded his arms across his chest. “Ever since your heart started beating like a crack addict running a marathon the second you set eyes on her that first day.”

  Khaki did a double take. She looked at Xander. “That happened?”

  Xander didn’t answer her. “There’s got to be more to it than that,” he said to Cooper.

  Cooper leaned back against the counter separating the main room from the area with the gun safes and high-value cages. “First, there was your bizarre reaction to having Khaki on the squad. That wasn’t like you at all. Then there was the way you snapped at her every time she made a little mistake. And let’s not forget the way you shook your head any time you got too close to her, like you were trying to shake off her scent.”

  “I didn’t do that,” Xander snapped.

  Cooper lifted a brow. “Sure you didn’t. I could go on for an hour describing all the little stuff you two did to give yourselves away, but it didn’t really all come together for me until I saw the way you two interacted down in those tunnels the other day.”

  “What do you mean?” Khaki asked.

  Everything had changed that day, but she couldn’t see how he could have p
ossibly picked up on that.

  “The level of instinctive trust you two had in each other was obvious,” Cooper said. “I would have to be blind not to see it. And I’d have to be stupid to think that level of faith had magically materialized thanks to a few days of good training. You two were linked the second you met.”

  “But that just meant we had a connection,” Xander pointed out. “How did you get from there to us sleeping together?”

  Cooper smiled. “I picked up on the scents you two were putting off that night when we all went barhopping. I knew if you hadn’t slept together yet, you were seriously thinking about it. But it wasn’t until the guys and I stopped by Khaki’s place the other day. When I mentioned I smelled your scent in her apartment, she came up with a lame lie about you stopping by to drop off training material. Then she told us she was going to take a bath when I could clearly hear the shower running. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was trying to hide your scent. That’s when I knew for sure.”

  The muscle in Xander’s jaw flexed. “Who else have you told?”

  “No one.” Cooper shrugged. “I figured if you two were willing to put your positions in the Pack at risk, it must be pretty serious between you.”

  “It is,” she and Xander said at the same time.

  “Then I’m not going to be the one to spill your secret,” Cooper said. “But you have to know this is going to come out at some point. The other guys in the squad aren’t stupid. If I figured it out, they will too. But it’s not us you have to be worried about; it’s Gage. And the thing that will piss him off more than you two having a relationship is the fact that you tried to hide it from him.”

  “It isn’t like we have much of a choice,” Khaki pointed out, although she knew he was right. It had been worse than naive to think she and Xander could hide this forever. “We know we need to tell him. Just not yet.” The thought of walking into Sergeant Dixon’s office and admitting she and Xander were sleeping together terrified her. “Maybe in a couple weeks, after he sees how well Xander and I are able to make this work.”

  Cooper shook his head. “A couple weeks? You know how crazy that is, right? I figured it out in a few days.”

  When he said it like that, Khaki realized just how impossible this was going to be. She loved what she’d found here in Dallas—both Xander and the Pack. The thought that she could lose both made her heart beat so fast her chest hurt.

  She was so wrapped up in her sudden panic attack she didn’t realize Xander had taken her hand until he spoke. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.”

  Khaki tried to nod but couldn’t manage it.

  “Xander’s right, so no freaking out,” Cooper told her. “I said this was crazy, but I didn’t say it was impossible. We do crazy every day. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out a way to keep this secret until you want to tell Gage. I’ll do everything I can to help you guys and run interference when I can.”

  She blinked. “You will? Why would you stick your neck out like this for us, especially knowing how it’s likely to turn out? Sergeant Dixon will be as pissed off at you as he is with us.”

  “You’re a member of the Pack. It’s what any of us would do,” he said, then grinned. “You may not realize it, but I’m a diehard romantic at heart, and you two make a hell of a cute couple.”

  Xander snorted. “Bullshit. You just like breaking rules whenever you get a chance and making life hard on Gage.”

  Cooper shrugged. “Maybe. I have to admit the thought of seeing him lose his mind when he finds out we were able to keep this from him does provide a certain level of motivation.”

  Khaki didn’t care why Cooper was offering his help. She was glad to have an ally they could trust.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.” Cooper’s mouth edged up. “Don’t worry. This is all going to work out.”

  Khaki knew it was insane, but she actually believed him.

  They were heading for the door when Xander’s cell phone rang. It was Becker saying the FBI had some tips they wanted the squad to check out.

  “I am curious about something though,” he said to Cooper after he hung up.

  “What’s that?”

  “What does Khaki smell like to you?”

  Khaki frowned. What kind of question was that?

  But Cooper didn’t seem as confused as she did. He shrugged. “She smells like a werewolf…a very feminine werewolf. Good, actually.”

  “Does she smell the same all the time?” Xander asked.

  It was Cooper’s turn to frown. “What do you mean?”

  “How about the other day, when we did yoga,” Xander asked. “What did she smell like then?”

  Where exactly was Xander going with this?

  Cooper’s mouth quirked. “Oh, you mean when she gets aroused?”

  Khaki blushed. “Oh God, you guys knew?”

  “It’s no big deal,” Cooper said. “We can smell when all women get aroused. It’s a smell that’s hard to miss.” He looked at Xander. “But in Khaki’s case, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on us lately.”

  Now Xander was the one who was confused. “What do you mean, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on you lately?”

  “She smelled really amazing when she first got here.” Cooper gave her a sheepish look. “It got all the guys going. But after a couple days, the effect seemed to fade away. We thought it was because we were getting used to her, but now I think it’s because she was already falling for you, Xander. I think your pheromones shifted so that the rest of us stopped getting smacked so hard with them.”

  “So the other day, during yoga…her scent didn’t…drive you crazy?” Xander asked.

  Khaki covered her face with her hands. Could this get any more embarrassing?

  Cooper laughed again and shook his head. “Afraid not. Most of us were too busy trying to twist ourselves into pretzels.”

  That was a relief. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to take twenty showers a day.

  * * *

  “So what kind of tip are we supposed to be checking out?” Alex asked from the backseat as Xander parked the SUV at the curb.

  Xander cut the engine and opened the door. “An anonymous tip reported seeing several men carrying big black bags and what they thought might be weapons into a house rented by two women.”

  Khaki surveyed the neighborhood as she hopped down from the front seat. Judging from the dilapidated houses and cracked sidewalks, this part of Oak Tree had seen better days.

  Alex snorted. “You’re kidding, right? Big black bags and things that might be weapons?”

  Xander came around the front to join her and Alex. “If it helps, the tipster said the women living there looked like they were really scared.”

  Khaki laughed at the look on Alex’s face. She couldn’t blame him. There had been three more meetings with the feds this week, and it was getting beyond old. Everyone had been sure the gang was going to hit the third, and supposedly last, bank over the weekend. The fact that they hadn’t made most people think they’d already left town.

  But the feds were keeping the task force together on the off chance that someone could come up with a lead that either pointed toward the next target, or at least gave them some idea who the hell these guys were. Khaki couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t like they had a choice. It was either stay in Dallas and hope to get lucky, or wait for the crew to strike another bank in some other city, then play catch-up. Just because everyone was working hard, didn’t mean they were getting any closer to apprehending these guys. Outside of a list of potential banks that might be ripe for the picking and a collection of anonymous tips, they really didn’t have anything. But Sergeant Dixon wanted them to keep helping, so Khaki and the rest of the squad took turns running down the tips that came in.

  They’d spent the last few hours driving all over the city, digging into dozens of useless tips that had come in to the hotline.

  She fell into step beside Xander as he led
the way up the cracked concrete walkway to the house. While it was in desperate need of repainting, there was nothing obviously suspicious.

  “You two check out the back,” Xander said. “I’ll keep an eye on the front.”

  She checked the back of the house with Alex, but didn’t see anything that made her werewolf senses tingle. When they came back to the front, Khaki walked onto the porch with Xander while Alex waited on the concrete walkway.

  A harried woman with bleached blond hair answered their knock, opening the screen door just enough to slip her head out and give them a wary look.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  Xander did the talking while Khaki kept her senses alert. Xander was asking if the woman had seen any strange men in the neighborhood when Khaki picked up a scent she recognized. It took her a few moments to run through her mental database and pull up where she’d smelled it before.

  Then it hit her—on the sidewalk that day during the bank robbery on Jackson Street.

  She concentrated, trying to narrow it down even further. The scent was from the suspect she’d thrown against the wall.

  Khaki threw Alex a quick look and flashed a two-fingered alert sign, then turned back to the woman in the doorway.

  “Ma’am, is there someone else in the house with you?” she asked.

  Khaki didn’t know if the man was there or whether the scent was lingering on something he’d touched, but the question made the woman go pale.

  “N-no. I’m alone,” she said. “Look, I’m really busy. Could you come back later?”

  Xander must have picked up on Khaki’s concern because he put a hand on the door as the woman moved to close it. “Ma’am, are you in danger?” he asked softly. “Is there someone else in the house with you?”

  Tears pooled in the woman’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks even as she shook her head. “No. I’m fine. Really. Please just go.”

  Xander exchanged a look with Khaki, his hand coming up to rest on the butt of his holstered weapon. Khaki did the same.

  “Ma’am, do you mind if my partners and I look inside?” he asked.

  The woman shook her head, mumbling over and over that she couldn’t come out. Xander took the woman’s hand, gently urging her to come out onto the porch.